Granny far more miss than hit
GANGSTA GRANNY, UKTV’s contribution to the Christmas Eve lineup is panto in style parable on message, the lessons to be extracted from the good natured merriment – be nice to your Gran and show some interest in the elderly.
On first meeting Ben’s Granny seems rather dull. She knits, plays an unexciting game of Scrabble, and is obsessed with dishing her grandson up ladles of vile cabbage soup, while Ben’s passion is plumbing.
Ben’s parents are into ballroom dancing big time and David Walliams, author of the bestselling book, Gangsta Granny, stars in the show playing Ben’s father while Miranda Hart plays his wife. Neither is very convincing or particularly funny, their humour too forced and it’s something of a shock to see Hart fall so flat and Walliams in such acute try-hard mode.
I know this a kiddie’s story and the characters are supposed to be larger-than-life, but aren’t children the best spotters of desperados and deserve quality acting too, especially at Christmas time?
Underneath all their sequins and spray tan Ben’s parents are really quite selfish while his Granny, aware of how boring she appears to her polite but remote grandson, gets Ben to fetch a biscuit tin off the top shelf, which turns out to be full of stolen bling.
Confession time – Granny, far from being a farty old bore is actually a retired jewellery thief, aka The Black Cat, and the two plan one great final heist together aiming high for the crown jewels in the Tower of London.
Their plan coincides with two subplots – Granny after being found face down in the lino after a day of elder abuse neglect, is told she’s terminally ill and Ben, due to telling his parentals fibs agrees to enter the junior ballroom dancing champs paired with a precocious
David Walliams and Miranda Hart feature in UKTV’s Gangsta Granny. Radar is in Houston tomorrow night to drool over the DeLorean in Global Radar on TV One followed by Galapagos with David Attenborough at 7.30pm. Season 9 of Criminal Minds starts on Monday TV One at 11.10pm. partner and an equally pushy parent. Gangsta Granny boasts a big name cast and you wonder why they bothered paying top dollar for some cast members who fail to set fire, till the day is saved by that Queen of camp, Joanna Lumley, who really is royal and manages to make the jump from storybook to screen and come across as loads of fun while being firm because well, she runs The Firm.
Julia McKenzie plays the Gangsta Granny and has the BLS (Best Line in Show) when Granny and Ben are stopped on a mobility scooter on the way to the burglary just short of the Tower of London. They furnish a suspicious copper with the story that they’re just off to a mobility scooter rally and when the plod says that Ben looks a bit young for it Granny explains that he suffers from YFS (Young Face Syndrome).
Speaking of suspicious, Rob Brydon (Gavin & Stacey) plays Mr Parker (first name Nosey I suppose) who is head of the local Neighborhood Watch group and has taken community curtain twitching to Stasi levels as he sits outside Gran’s in vans and thinks he’s finally going to nab her. His role is a gift, but even this great comic falls short.
What does impress is the ending where we see everyone sorted with their hobbies, respectful of each other’s interests but under no pressure to take them on.
More importantly Granny’s ailing health is handled beautifully in mime as Ben sits at the end of her bed with glove puppets (‘Cameron Slaters’ you might call them in these parts) entertaining his dear old Gran seeing her out and accepting death as part of not only his life but also in his not-so-selfish anymore parents too. Nicely done heartwarming stuff and a timely reminder for young ’uns to show some respect.
Even though I found fault with Gangsta Granny it stayed with me for days after, which means it did its job. Johnny English (TV3, 7pm) is a terribly British spy spoof from the mind of Rowan Atkinson. Atkinson plays super agent Johnny as a bumbling Bond, who unaccountably keeps his job and stumbles to victory against a pack of super-villains.
It’s a funny enough film I guess, and Atkinson at his best is a physical comedian for the ages. But it’s hard not to think that rubber-faced Rowan is still kicking himself for not coming up with the Austin Powers character that Canadian Mike Myers rode all the way to global superstardom.
On Prime at 8.35pm, Death at a Funeral is a slapstick black comedy from 2007. It’s a pretty good, occasionally quite inspired, ensemble comedy set around one funeral, and a whole closet full of family skeletons. Prime, bless them, are playing the far better British original, not the shabby American remake.
On Maori TV at 9.30pm, Scent of a Woman is the film that won Al Pacino his Best Actor Oscar, after seven nominations. Pacino plays a blind, retired Army officer taking a young student under his wing, and teaching him a few lessons about life and love.
This is still a terrific movie, pretty much undimmed since its 1992 release. Pacino is wonderful, Chris O’Donnell likeable as the student assigned to ‘‘care for’’ Pacino, and Philip Seymour Hoffman appears in an early break-out performance. The Lady Vanishes (Prime, 8.35pm) is a 2013 British film that was marketed as a remake of the 1938 Alfred Hitchcock classic. But that’s misleading, as this film sticks far closer to the original source novel The Wheel Spins, and should really be judged without thinking too much about the Hitchcock version.
Director Diarmuid Lawrence has a great track record at Brit costume drama, and he’s done well here, with this tale of murder and nastiness aboard a grand transEuropean train. If you’ve a taste for your Marples and Poirots, you’ll enjoy this.
On Maori TV at 8.30pm, Kundun is Martin Scorsese’s wholly unexpected recounting of the early life of the current Dalai Lama. The film covers events from 1937 to 1959, when the young religious leader fled into exile pursued by the Chinese soldiers who had invaded his Tibetan homeland.
Scorsese couldn’t make a bad film if he tried, and his sense of pace and spectacle serve this story well. The Pa Boys (Maori TV, New Year’s Eve, 9.30pm) is a debut feature film from local director Himiona Grace.
The story follows a young band and their partners as they travel ‘‘down north’’ from Wellington to the East Coast, Hokianga, and Cape Reinga, playing a series of eventful gigs at small town pubs as they go.
The film was shot chronologically over the course of a genuine five week road trip in 2013, which I was lucky enough to be part of. There’s a few ragged edges, but there’s a lot about this film to like and respect. If you’re a fan of local cinema, and good music, you’ll enjoy it a lot.